ISLAMABAD (Sept. 22) XINHUA - Many people, most of them children aging from six months to two years, have died of a cholera-like disease in central Afghanistan, the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported.

Relief agencies were quoted as saying Friday that the disease, which has symptoms like those of cholera, has killed many people, most of them children, in Samangan and Bamyan provinces.

Experts said the disease might be the result of eating poisonous plants due to lack of food material in the area.

An official of an aid agency in central Afghanistan said that during the last one and a half month, over 27 children had died in Darra-e-Suf. He said the local people described the disease as " cholera" which caused water in the bodies of the victims to vanish rapidly.